Paul Ryan Supports Gay Adoption But Doesn't Want the Kids to Have Married Parents: VIDEO

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spoke to a town hall in Wisconsin on Monday and was asked about his positions on ENDA, gay adoption, and same-sex marrage, Think Progress reports.

Ryan told the audience that he supports ENDA, and voted for it, but would have to take another look at it when you add transgender protections. He also said that he supports gay adoption, something he voted against in his first term.

He does not, however, support those adopted kids having married parents.

Said Ryan: "I do believe that if there are children who are orphans who do not have a loving person or couple I think if a person wants to love and raise a child they ought to be able to do that. Period. I would vote that way. I do believe marriage is between a man and a woman, we just respectfully disagree on that issue."

Comments

How can you support adoption rights for LGBT people but not marriage? Do you not consider legal rights important for child-raising, Mr. Ryan?

For a party who always says, "think of the children" .... it's about time they took their own advice.

Posted by: Marc | Apr 30, 2013 7:24:00 PM

I understand Paul Ryan's position because it is the one I myself held until about a year ago. And this is just why we should expect Mr. Ryan to support SSM eventually. Once you accept gay couples adopting (as opposed to rearing the children they created in previous hetero unions) you've already accepted gay families. Whether you know it or not - whether you admit it or not. It is hard to argue why those families should not have the parents relationship solidified by a legal marriage. Either "the gay family" is not legitimate (and therefoer gay couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt) or the gay family IS legitimate (hence, able to adopt) and then deserves marriage equality.

For all we know Mr. Ryans has already changed his beliefs on SSM and is just waiting for the Republican base to accept the inevitable before he formally switches his position in public.

Posted by: Mary | Apr 30, 2013 7:38:00 PM

And then there's Mitt Romney out there telling kids in a commencement address to marry early and breed often, which unless you have a family fortune and trust fund to count on like he did, will fill the welfare rolls and put even more children in poverty. Talk about bad advice!

Romney and Ryan 2012: Disaster averted!

Posted by: David Hearne | Apr 30, 2013 7:41:33 PM

Mary, I'm glad you have been able to "evolve" to quote an oft used word of late on the marriage equality issue. And I want to be sure you understand (written word often doesn't carry the right tone and meaning gets lost) that I am truly glad for you and for the community and I truly do appreciate the effort it took for you to come to the point you are now.

That said, your belief is your belief. If you previously believed that marriage was only valid between kangaroos and toaster ovens, that would have been your belief as well.

But unless you are an unidentified elected official, your belief is just that...your belief.

And Paul Ryan has his belief. That's okay too! And George Wallace believed that blacks were inferior.

We can't change people's beliefs. On people can change their own beliefs.

BUT...Paul Ryan isn't just a person with beliefs. Paul Ryan is an elected official sworn to uphold the United States Constitution and to craft and support laws that are in accordance with that document. Your beliefs have to take a back seat to your actions as an elected official taking an oath of office. If you can't or wont sublimate your belief system in order to legislate appropriately, then you must step down and provide space for another individual to step forward.

If your primary belief system is dependent on a religious book and your second belief system is based upon the secular constitution of your country...then you
a) really need to re-examine your priorities
and
b) need to examine you role as a human being sworn to protect everyone but deciding to play favorites.

Posted by: Jay | Apr 30, 2013 7:48:42 PM

Welcome to the Wisconsin mindset.

It's now (12 years later) OK for gay couples to provide a home for an orphan but no ... they're not entitled to the same legal rights or benefits as a heterosexual couple.

"We'll just have to respectfully agree."

How about instead of respectfully disagreeing we ask that you spend a week in the shoes of a gay parent? Or that we start a drive to put your privileged class American liberties up to mob vote?

Smarmy bastard.

Posted by: JONES | Apr 30, 2013 7:52:27 PM

@Jay

Nailed it. Perfectly.

Posted by: JONES | Apr 30, 2013 7:54:46 PM

@Jay, you ROCK! That is the best comment I have seen in quite some time.

Paul Ryan is a moron and one of the biggest frauds in Congress. He holds downright incoherent views on almost every issue, and here is another perfect example. Wisconsin, please get this guy out of office.

Posted by: SoLeftImRight | Apr 30, 2013 8:02:47 PM

Yes, Jay DID nail it. That reply needs to go viral--very, very good argument. Thanks for taking the time to share it, and for doing so in such a respectful tone for Mary. Well done.

Posted by: JC | Apr 30, 2013 8:05:25 PM

brilliant headline. sums it up completely

Posted by: Homo Genius | Apr 30, 2013 8:18:50 PM

What about kids who aren't orphans? How's the moron feel about that? I have no idea what the data are, but clearly a lot of gay couples are raising kids from surrogates or artificial insemination---which while not miles removed from adoption, is different given the genetic link. All the approaches are certainly difficult and costly, emotionally and financially.

And before I get attacked if this sounds insensitive, two of my brothers are adopted and I've never once thought of them as anything but my real brothers.

Posted by: Paul R | Apr 30, 2013 8:45:18 PM

"We have to respectfully disagree" is such vile BS that he deserves to be punched in the face for. This isn't some ivory tower debate where you can just disagree and go on. Real people's lives are negatively affected by his position. It's something that can only come from someone in a position of privilege. All it does it maintain the status quo while letting him pretend that he is a nice guy. But there is no nice way to discriminate and deny people their rights.

Posted by: Steve | Apr 30, 2013 10:03:17 PM

I want to make him my power bottom so bad. He has the face and butt for it.

Posted by: TONEZ | Apr 30, 2013 10:09:02 PM

So not only does Ryan see gay couples as deserving of fewer rights than straight couples, but he sees the adoptedd children of gays as entitled to fewer rights than the adopted children of straighten. But he's respectful about it, so it's okay.

Posted by: Clayton | Apr 30, 2013 10:16:11 PM

@Jay: Well said!

Posted by: andrew | Apr 30, 2013 10:17:14 PM

Jay, thank you for being courteous. It seems, though, that you are viewing the anti-SSM position as solely a fuction of one's religous beliefs. This is not true of all SSM opponents (it was never true for me). Most of them resort to the use of the religious argument because it is the only one that American culture allows us when we have to reject equality or freedom. It's implication is something like this - "I would love to be liberal and support freedom and equality like we Americans are supposed to do, but in this case Jesus won't let me."

The secular argument against SSM has to do with how it would affect society long term - a far more complex argument and one that involves much speculation, as well as admitting that something may benefit us now but cause serious harm to future generations. My own beliefs changed because I learned that SSM or an equivalent has been legal in Denmark for 24 years now and has caused no serious harm to society. This, in my view, takes care of the "unintended consequences" argument and gives the edge to freedom and equality.

My point is that the move to legalize SSM is a significant change in civilization. It is not self-evident that it should be supported simply because one claims that SSM is his "right." Mr. Ryan, like many on the right, may be struggling with this issue. That he now supports gay couple's adopting shows that he does have some concern for gays as individuals and the contributions they can make to society.

Posted by: Mary | Apr 30, 2013 10:27:34 PM

Lyin' Ryan is dangerous. He's a life-is-hard-and-then-you-die kind of guy. Let him keep his joyless, bourgeois meanderings to himself. He will lie for power though and that's the problem.

If ever there was a personal situation in which karma was in order, this is it.

May all of his children grow into prosperous and joyful homosexuals.

Posted by: Fahd | Apr 30, 2013 10:33:34 PM

Fahd, how does one "grow into" being a honosexual? I thought that people were born with their sexual orientation and it wasn't a choice. Or are all people really bisexual - and capable of going either way? I had heard this somewhere - that all of us are really bisexual to an extent and that what we usually call being "straight" or "gay" is really a matter of "tilting" and not being 100% any sexual orientation.

But I see why you dislike Paul Ryan. He is something of a libertarian - and an Ayn Rand devotee. Their is something weird about libertarianism. It often comes across as adolescent and self-serving.

'how it will affect society long term' is the argument used by secular bigots. it's circular supposition. don't allow something to happen because there might be adverse affects. we don't know what those adverse affects are but they might happen.

Posted by: JONES | Apr 30, 2013 10:50:12 PM

Go away Mary

Posted by: Steve | Apr 30, 2013 10:55:21 PM

Actually, we could easily speculate what the adverse effects of SSM might be (long term, that is.) A reduced number of people who would be able to find an opposite-sex spouse if more people took up same-sex relationships (since every person who chooses to live a gay lifestyle reduces the number of heterosexuals.) Fewer children born overall, or at least fewer who would grow up with a biological mother and biological father. There are other possibly consequences, I'm just listing a few.

But it hardly matters. SSM is on its way to becoming legal in one state after another. It isn't accurate to label all SSM opponents as bigots. I was never a bigot - that's why I was able to switch sides on this issue.

After all, if the logic of SSM is so self-evident, how is it that no one saw it until recently? Even gay rights itself only goes back about 60 years - above-ground gay rights organizations, that is.

Posted by: Mary | Apr 30, 2013 11:03:29 PM

Steve, I'm only trying to show why there is disagreement on SSM. Many people on Towleroad keep acting as if it's self-evident that the US Constitution supports SSM and that there could be no objection to SSM that's not motivated by bigotry or stupidity. I'm trying to show why this isn't so.

There's no need to tell me to "go away" since we're now on the same side.

Posted by: Mary | Apr 30, 2013 11:11:45 PM

@Mary -- Your hypotheses in support of how SSM could have any material harm are specious and conjured up so you can find a way to rationalize your prior bias . First of, the idea that more people might "choose to live a gay lifestyle" thereby reducing the number of heterosexuals is, frankly, ridiculous. Sexual orientation is not a chosen lifestyle -- the only thing that is chosen is whether or not to live your life in the closet or repress your true nature. People living openly as gay would not reduce the number of heterosexuals, it would just reduce the number of people hiding who they are and entering into opposite sex relationships because of societal pressure to do so.

Similarly, the idea that SSM could reduce birthrate essentially springs from your faulty premise that SSM could materially reduce the number of opposite sex relationships, thus reducing the number of children born of such relationships. As to fewer children being raised by a bio mother/father pair, your arguments are logically inconsistent. While some gay couples have children that are adopted from prior hetero relationships, this becoming far less common as more gays live openly and don't have these prior hetero relationships.The trend is that children raised by gay couples are adopted, or produced by surrogacy. If adopted, it means that the bio parents have already given the children up for adoption -- therefore allowing SSM would not be the cause of these children not being raised by bio parents. Children born through surrogacy to same-sex parents would never have existed but for a same-sex couple's determination to have children. While these children will, in fact, necessarily not be raised by both bio parents, they exist only because of a same-sex couple's decision, meaning that these same-sex couples actually increase the birth rate, not decrease it.

While we are glad you have (mostly) come around on many of these issues, it is still important to understand that the reasons for denying SSM based on some purely hypothetical future parade of horribles (even if not purely based in religion) simply does not withstand any real scrutiny.

Posted by: MiloTock | May 1, 2013 12:58:04 AM

Mary
Main stream media likes to present our struggle as a 'marriage' issue when in fact it's a civil rights issue. Denying a minority equality under law is not a bias, it's bigotry.

Equality under law does not have room for 'speculation' into 'possible' side effects. Speculation is not knowing.
I can speculate that gay marriage will revive the economy, does that counter balance your speculative arguments?

The right to marriage under pursuit of happiness has been upheld by the SCOTUS 14 times so yeah it is a guaranteed right under the constitution.

Posted by: JONES | May 1, 2013 1:23:32 AM

Well said, MiloTock. I appreciate Mary's sentiments, and yet I think you made a perfect argument against her past beliefs.

Posted by: Marc | May 1, 2013 1:47:39 AM

@Mary
[For all we know Mr. Ryans(sic) has already changed his beliefs on SSM and is just waiting for the Republican base to accept the inevitable before he formally switches his position in public.]

So your telling us that you believe that Mr. Ryan is a "follow the crowd" coward that would play follow the leader but does not want to be one of the leaders.

[It is not self-evident that it should be supported simply because one claims that SSM is his "right."]
Mary, how is it not "self-evident" that marriage equality is not a right? 14 times the United States Supreme Court has declared that marriage is a "basic right". How is it possible to not understand that the text of the 14th amendment applies to "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".....are entitled to equal protection under the law." What part of "All" is so difficult for people to understand? "All", IMO, would include the gay citizens of United States.

" My own beliefs changed because I learned that SSM or an equivalent has been legal in Denmark for 24 years now and has caused no serious harm to society."

Marriage equality has not been legal in Denmark for even a year. Google it.

"There's no need to tell me to "go away" since we're now on the same side."
Mary, as long as you are using terms like "gay lifestyle",and seeing SSM as a substitute for marriage equality, and until you improve your understanding of how the Constitution of the United States should apply to gay people, we will not be on the same side. You tell us that "Even gay rights itself only goes back about 60 years" indicating that you don't understand that the promise for "equal protection under the law" was made over 144 years ago. The illegal discrimination against gay people has been ongoing since then. It did not just start with the Eisenhower administration.

What this all comes down to is that Ryan is an idiot, a coward, and supports the Constitution of the United States only when it is convenient for him to do so. Never was it more appropriate to say that "you can put lipstick on a pig, but in the end, what you have is still a pig".